Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Cultural clones - the engineering

Continuing the cultural clones series of posts, in the previous two posts here and here, we saw the stark difference between the early Greek accounts of India in the BC era and the later Jesuit accounts in the AD era. Where Greek records lacked all the general toxicity associated with Christian writers, the Jesuit records were full of it. When the Jesuits landed on Indian shores they brought with them land grabbing, Bible selling, pagan hatred in plenty. There was power struggle among the various European Jesuits, but eventually the British ones prevailed. Having subjugated enough of the pagans, they soon began to consolidate and plan for their continued hold over the land.

Many British Jesuits tried their hand at further gaining and consolidating their influence over the pagans. They tried selling Christianity in various ways but none had any noteworthy success. Then came Thomas Babington Macaulay who first landed in Calcutta to serve in the "Supreme Council of India" that the East India Company had established. He realised, to successfully indoctrinate the Indians, he needed a much granular program. He needed to come up with a plan to program a class of people who would be from among the Indians but only in physical appearance. In all other respects they would resemble every bit the Englishmen. He came up with a draft program for education in colonised India. It was adopted by the council on March 7, 1835. This plan can be found in his "Minute on Indian Education". The gist of the plan was -

"We must at present do our best to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions we govern; a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect."

"Our English schools are flourishing wonderfully. We find it difficult, at some places impossible, to provide instruction for all who want it. At the single town of Hoogley fourteen hunderd boys are learning English. The effect of this education on the Hindoos is prodigious. No Hindoo who has received an English education ever continues to be sincerely attached to his religion. Some continue to profess it as a matter of policy. But many profess themselves pure Deists, and some embrace Christianity. The case with Mahometans is very different. The best educated Mahometan continues often to be Mahometan still. The reason is plain. The Hindoo religion is so extravagantly absurd that it is impossible to teach a boy astronomy, geography, natural history, without completely destroying the hold which that religion has on his mind. But the Mahometan religion belongs to a better family. It has very much in common with Christianity; and even where it is more absurd, it is reasonable compared with Hindooism. It is my firm belief that, if our plan of education is followed up, there will not be a single idolater among respectable classes in Bengal thirty years hence. And this will be effected without any efforts to proselytise, without the smallest interference with religious liberty, merely by natural operation of knowledge and reflection. I heartily rejoice in this prospect." (Emphasis added.)

Thus Thomas Babington Macaulay, a Jesuit British coloniser, laid the foundation to engineer a class of cultural clones from among the Indians that would continue to govern India for their colonial overlords. It is this plan that has effected many a cultural clone we see insisting on dominating all opinion making, indeed anything of significance in India. It should not come as a surprise to anyone that Jawaharlal Nehru was a product of this very same cultural cloning program. Having gone through it, Nehru furthered the plan to continue generating more of them. The unwashed masses could not be allowed to have their say in their very own land.